So now hundreds of supplement companies have looked to chemical derivatives and synthetic vitamins as a solution. The very logic of this seems irrational when you remember where vitamins come from. Vitamins are found in food, and just because current growing and processing methods have depleted the vitamins available from our foods, it does not mean that we should come up with new-fangled ways to get these micronutrients from some other source. Instead, we should look for a way to get more of the safe, effective vitamins that are available only from foods.
Let me explain by using vitamin C as an example. Ascorbic acid is often sold as vitamin C, and yet it is only a chemically derived fraction of the whole food vitamin. As it is found in food, vitamin C is a complete complex which is actually made up of ascorbic acid plus rutin, bioflavonoids, K factor and J factors – as well as other substances that no human experiment has been able to replicate. You must have all of these fractions in order for the Vitamin to be complete. In order for the body to absorb and use a vitamin, all of the parts of the complex must be present. That means that in order to use the fractionated form of the vitamin, the body must first supply the other parts of the whole food complex. If ascorbic acid alone is ingested, the body must complete the complex by robbing its own collagen tissue of the elements that are missing in the “vitamin C” you supplied.
